Chapter 6: Love Is Weeping

on the gaadi outside his tomb, circa 1928

At Meherabad, the Master began staying in his Jhopdi again. The men mandali took up residence in the Mess Quarters, and the women stayed in the Post Office. Each person was given a specific duty. A boys' school was reestablished on 31 December 1926. Since the Hazrat Babajan School had been dismantled and the men mandali now occupied the Mess Quarters, the new school was opened in the Family Quarters at Arangaon where the Shahane family had formerly lived. Pandoba, Ramchandra Gadekar, and Nisal were appointed as teachers by Baba.

Two other boys also were admitted to the school at this time. Ramchandra Bapu Kale, 50, was an engineer in Dhulia and Kaka Shahane's wife's maternal uncle.  He had first met Baba at Meherabad six months earlier in May. (He had met Sai Baba and Narayan Maharaj also.) Kale was so overwhelmingly drawn to Baba that he sent two of his sons, Babu, fifteen, and Murli, thirteen, to study in the school. A few years later, he himself came to stay with Baba in Meherabad and was affectionately known as Kalemama (Uncle Kale). 

On 31 December, Baba gave his last handwritten discourse:

Love is all pervading in the universe but the types of love differ. The love in inanimate things in creation is mere attraction — like in a magnet. In the animal kingdom there is love among animals and birds, but it is passionate, full of desires and carnal. Carnality signifies bodily wants — eating, drinking, procreation, and fear. Suppose a tiger pounces on a deer, kills and eats it; this is also love, but it is of the lowest type. Consider to what mean level love descends in an animal that is hungry and wants to satisfy its hunger by killing another innocent animal. And consider also to what length the lover (tiger) haunts his beloved (the victim, the deer) by following it stealthily.

In human beings, love is also sometimes passionate. If a person is hungry, he first thinks of a favorite dish; his mouth waters and he longs to eat it. If sweet laddoos are there, the person wants to fill his stomach to his throat. This is called "laddoo love." Once he is satisfied and his stomach is bloated, he is finished. One or two good belches and no hunger and no more laddoo love. There are people whose desire for name and fame or money surpasses their reason, so much so that they lack hunger and sleep.